York County has a cottage industry turning out NFL fullbacks

John Kuhn is another in a long line of successful pro players at hard-nosed position.

Green Bay Packer John Kuhn, a Dover High grad, gets into the end zone for an 8-yard touchdown run during the first half of an NFL football game against the New York Giants on Dec. 26, 2010. (Associated Press)

York, PA -
Almost always, the football players so gifted to leave here and make it in the NFL are the hardest-hitting, no-glamour types.

This is the place for fullbacks.

It has been going on for years in York County, its backbone factories and farmland. From William Penn's Woody Bennett to Eastern's Jon Witman to a family of fullbacks from Red Land High in Lewisberry.

Of course, the most celebrated now is John Kuhn, the nimble bull from Dover who has become a cult figure for the surging Green Bay Packers. Sunday, he'll try to help lead them over the Chicago Bears and into the Super Bowl.

"You have to be strong and tough and hard-nosed, which I think comes from our kind of area," said Red Land's Mike Cox, a three-year fullback with the Kansas City Chiefs. "That's the kind of people we are.

"You have to be mentally tough. You have to be able to do the dirty work no one else wants to do without getting the glory."

All of these fullbacks were college standouts and steady NFL contributors -- but in a most unique way.

All of them made careers from doing the game's sacrificial, blood-and-bruises blocking, play after play. Rarely do they receive the reward of a ball stuck in their guts or a pass thrown their way.

Kuhn, however, has found the spotlight better than most, thanks to his unusual athleticism as well as decisive injuries to the Packers' main runners this season. Surprisingly, he's served as a part-time lead runner for the hottest team in the NFL.

Take Witman, gone from the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2002. He only really knows Kuhn through a trainer but still traveled to Shippensburg a couple of times to watch him play in college.

Now he follows him on TV.

"That's the only reason I'm rooting for the Packers to go to the Super Bowl, because of him," Witman said. "I want him to do well.

"I was more straight-forward (as a runner). Somebody would get in my way and I'd whack the hell out of him. He can whack the hell out of him or be shifty and go around him. He has more athletic ability than I ever had.

"John can make a cut and go and then stop on a dime and go again. He's strong as an ox and can run the ball like a pure tailback."

To understand, go back to Kuhn's senior year of college, to one particular game at Bloomsburg.

"It's raining and he breaks off this run where the linebacker hits him and bounces right off of him," said Rocky Rees, Shippensburg's former coach. "He sprints up field and the safety goes low and he jumps over him like an Olympic hurdler. All you hear are 'oohs and ahhs.' They were coming from both sides of the stadium."

Nevertheless, Kuhn entered the NFL at a position that was still undergoing a significant re-shaping.

At one time, fullbacks were the big, bruising runners who often carried offenses, from the legendary Jim Brown through Earl Campbell and Steelers' Hall of Famer Franco Harris.

Bennett made his football living in the 1980s when NFL teams still relied on their largest, most powerful running backs as much as anyone. He gained more than 600 yards one season for the Miami Dolphins.

But as spread offenses developed with ever-increasing reliance on passing, the role of the fullback shrunk. Now, many colleges don't utilize them at all.

Now, they are reduced to situational pieces of offenses, mostly as short-yardage blockers and goal-line plungers and last-resort pass-catchers.

And that's about it.

Which makes it even more surprising how Kuhn's carries spiked dramatically this year to 84. That's significant considering most fullbacks only run the ball a handful of times in an entire season.

Witman's only NFL touchdown came on a head-shaking, 31-yard gallop in the playoffs as a rookie. He never again reached the end zone in six years.

Cox? He didn't get so much as one carry this past season.

And there wasn't much more action for his younger brother, Lucas, another fullback and recent Georgia Tech graduate. Still, he hopes to break into the NFL, too, this spring.

And yet they all understand their roles and usually embrace them.

"You've got to be able to run full-speed and hit a linebacker who's as big as you are," Lucas Cox said. "They get a five-yard running start and we get a five-yard running start and we smash each other's brains in."

Valuable fullbacks can still be found, it's just that they blend in more easily than ever.

Guys like New York Jets' Tony Richardson, a 16-year NFL veteran, or the Baltimore Ravens' Le'Ron McClain or even Lancaster County's Dan Kreider, who stuck around for 10 years and was a teammate of Witman's.

Mechanicsburg's Jon Ritchie carried the ball only 15 times in seven seasons with the Oakland Raiders and Philadelphia Eagles.

"We're dying off," Witman said. "Teams will bring in two medium-sized tailbacks or two tight ends or a tight end in motion...

"You just accept it. Football is always changing philosophy. In about 10 years they're going to come right back to how it used to be. ... Down the road they'll be using two-back sets again."

And to think that Witman was the last pure fullback at Penn State used as a workhorse runner, and that was 15 years ago.

Maybe, though, things really have come full-circle, at least when it comes to York County fullbacks.

Kuhn is scoring touchdowns and leaping into the crowd and getting his name chanted at Lambeau Field.

He's running the ball the way fullbacks always used to. fbodani@ydr.com; 771-2104